Sunday, June 12, 2011

New logo: CBS Sports Network

The Disney-owned ESPN has long been the dominant basic cable sports channel in the United States. It has been so succesful and its brand has become so well known, that the sports coverage on Disney's broadcast network ABC was rebranded "ESPN on ABC" back in 2006.

Other cable sports channels have usually been regional or specialized in some way, but that now seems about to change. Ever since the NBC Universal-Comcast merger was announced, it has been speculated that Comcast's sports channel Versus would be rebranded and take the NBC Sports name. That rebranding is now imminent and is expected to take place in the coming weeks. Given the recent announcement that NBCUniversal will have exclusive rights to the Olympics until 2020, an "NBC Sports Channel" would have a lot going for it.

Another sports network which has rebranded to take on ESPN is the CBS College Sports Network, which had its name shortened to CBS Sports Network on April 4. This allows the network to expand its content to sports in general, although the network promises it will still have a focus on college sports. The network has its origins in CSTV, which was purchased by CBS Corporation over five years ago and renamed to include CBS branding in 2008.

The CBS College Sports Network logo, used between 2008-2011.

As for the new logo, it is essentially the regular CBS Sports logo with "Network" attached to it. As a side note, one can mention that the typeface is spceially commissioned and is called "CBS Sports". The CBS Sports logo has been used at least since the early 1980s.The rebrand was announced through a press release on February 15.

The Denver-based motion design studio Spillt has posted a video of a launch promo they did for the network. "Starting with the old logo, we created a 3D turbine environment to show its evolution into the new CBS Sports Network Logo."